Team Bartilucci's CMBA Guilty Pleasures Blogathon Double-Feature: CAN'T STOP THE MUSIC and THE APPLE

This review is part of the CMBA Guilty Pleasures Blogathon. The Blogathon runs from September 18th through 20th, 2011. By all means, please leave comments for one and all! :-) 

 Dorian’s Pick: Can’t Stop the Music (1980)

I was first introduced to The Village People’s first and last musical Can’t Stop the Music (CStM) by my delightful Fordham University chum Barbara Prisco in the mid-1980s. At first I was just plain gobsmacked by its garish ineptitude, but somehow upon subsequent viewings, it became more compelling and — dare I say it? — endearing, especially when our pals and fellow movie mavens/writers Michael Gingold and Matthew Kiernan scored us a mint copy of the DVD. This time, the glittery opening titles sequence dazzled me like a magpie faced with a shiny object, and I won’t deny that its engaging anthem, David London's “Sound of the City,” had me smiling and nostalgic for the way Manhattan was when our family lived there. Life has never been quite the same for us (or NYC, for that matter) since. CStM is a textbook example of two different breeds of Bad Movies:

1. The “So Bad It’s Good” Movie.
2. The “Cash in On a Fad While It’s Hot” Movie.

Baskin-Robbins Can't Stop the Nuts ice cream

To slightly paraphrase the title of the Quantic song, time was the enemy of The Village People (The VPs) and CStM. By the time show biz producer/glitzmeister Allan Carr got this Nancy Walker-directed musical extravaganza and its aggressive marketing campaign into movie theaters (Baskin-Robbins even had an ice cream flavor called “Can’t Stop the Nuts”), the hot band’s movie was more like a hot mess. It was already 1980, and both The VPs and their 1970s musical stylings were considered to be on their way out, despite having released their album Live and Sleazy with a single optimistically titled “Ready for the ’80s.” To paraphrase Walter Pidgeon as Dr. Morbius in Forbidden Planet, after three years of shining success, the poor VPs could hardly have understood what power was destroying them. How could they have known that AIDS and other unpleasantness would soon rear their ugly heads? How could they have anticipated that the music of the 1980s wouldn’t be disco, but New Wave and power ballads? Moreover, not only does CStM essentially turn The VPs into extras in their own movie, but its attempts to make the Pre-Fab Six look like hetero heartthrobs by throwing attractive women at them at every opportunity often comes off as patronizing. Nevertheless, I liked CStM’s Judy Garland/Mickey Rooney-style “Let’s put on a show!” format. The movie is studded with guest stars, mostly The VPs’ fellow Casablanca Records artists, including sexy girl singers The Ritchie Family, and an interesting motley crew of celebrities including June Havoc (the original Baby June, as fans of Gypsy well know!), Barbara Rush, Tammy Grimes (love her gorgeous violet outfits!), Paul Sand, Jack Weston, and Altovise Davis, wife of Sammy Davis Jr., as the lucky gal who discovers both Ray Simpson, The Cop (he had replaced original lead singer Victor Willis) and the shy, affable Alex Briley, who becomes The VPs’ G.I. The band is complete when Leatherman (and my fellow Bronxite) Glenn Hughes shows up at auditions. Actually, Glenn’s there to get an extension on his income tax, but ends up wowing everyone with his genuinely moving rendition of “Danny Boy” (still dressed in his leather gear, bless him)! Another CStM guest star: Leigh Taylor-Young, beloved from TV series ranging from the long-running TV version of Peyton Place to Picket Fences, as well as movies, including Soylent Green (1973) and the 1969 movie version of Elmore Leonard’s The Big Bounce, and so much more. Taylor-Young’s cast credit is arguably the wordiest:  “Cameo Guest Appearance by Leigh Taylor-Young.” Not to nit-pick, but shouldn’t the whole point of a movie cameo be that they don’t announce the star in question before she appears onscreen? Just sayin’….

Supermodel Sam’s having a dry(ing) spell.

Oscar-nominee (but not for CStM) Valerie Perrine has starred in prestigious yet offbeat films like Slaughterhouse Five (1972) and Lenny (1974) over the course of her long career, so I’m not surprised that she was game to co-star with The VPs. Perrine plays recently-retired supermodel Samantha Simpson, In fact, since the retirement was Sam’s idea and she’s still in demand despite turning down offers left and right, she’s become renowned as “the Garbo of models,” no less! To borrow a lyric from Bette Midler, you gotta have friends, and our Sam is apparently the straight best friend to all of her handsome gay Greenwich Village neighbors — not that any of the characters (or screenwriters) admit that out loud. The word “gay” never actually slips from anyone’s lips. It’s so cute how they keep pairing up The VPs with pretty young women. Ready for the ’80s? Not so much, back in the day. The closest we get to acknowledging and accepting homosexuals in CStM is this heated dialogue Samantha has with Bruce Jenner as priggish tax lawyer and St. Louis transplant Ron White (even his name sounds bland and uptight) just before he leaves Sam’s lovely apartment in a huff, which appears to be Ron’s favorite mode of transportation:

Ron: “Let’s put it this way: your friends are a little far-out for me.”
Sam: “What do you mean?”
Ron: “I don’t understand why a good-looking girl like you is down here in the Village with a bunch of…I don’t know what!”
Sam: “Do you know something? I don’t judge people, I accept them. There isn’t a person who breathes who doesn’t have certain peculiarities, and as long as it doesn’t hurt anybody, it’s all right with me.”
Ron: “Yeah, but where do you draw the line?”
Sam: “With uptight squares like you! (She slams the door on him.) Really!”

Panic at the Disco? Nah, just Neon Maniacs!

Our Sam is not only loyal, she’s downright peripatetic, perhaps a tad too much so at times. Her voice occasionally sounds like she’s been mixing uppers and helium. One of her best pals is VP Felipe Rose, a.k.a.The Indian of the about-to-be-formed VPs. Felipe goes around the Village in an elaborate American Indian headpiece and little else, and comes into Sam’s place through her window (good thing she lives in a garden apartment!) to watch Lone Ranger reruns. Free-spirited Sam doesn’t mind: “Why not? This is neighborly New York.” Another one of Sam’s pals is young aspiring songwriter Jack Morell, played by Steve Guttenberg (and modeled after The VPs’ creator Jacques Morali) , best known from Diner, the Police Academy flicks, and Curtis Hanson’s Hitchcock manque The Bedroom Window (1987). For all I know, Guttenberg may be the nicest guy in the world, but in every film I’ve ever seen him in, somehow he’s always managed to grate on my nerves while being about as winsome and exciting as pabulum. How is that possible? Anyway, Jack gets a guest DJ stint at the hot Manhattan disco Saddletramps, run by sleazy owner Benny Murray, played by beloved character actor Weston. Sexy Sam dirty-dances with several attractive gents, including two more VPs: The Construction Worker, David Hodo; and The Cowboy, Randy Jones. The club patrons dance the night away to Jack’s tunes, especially the song he wrote for Sam, appropriately titled “Samantha.” (Click here for the music video.) Sam is sold and eager to help Jack get his music out to the loving public. She plans to call on music producers she’s “danced and romanced” with in her lively past: “Mama has connections!” Of course, it’s not that easy, what with Sam’s record company mogul ex, Steve Waits (Sand stands out as a sleazy, funny foil), willing to work with Sam if she’ll get back together with him and pay The VPs peanuts, the cheap so-and-so!

This is the sexiest scene in CStM — too bad it's not even in the film!

Hot girl, hot lasagna, 1st-degree burns; that’s comedy!

Pabulum Boy Guttenberg is Brad Pitt compared to Olympic Decathlete-turned-actor Bruce Jenner as the easily-offended Ron. In a movie like this, you just know that sooner or later Sam and Ron will fall for each other, if only because it’s in the script. To borrow a line from Mad Magazine’s Caine Mutiny parody, there’s gotta be a romance, by George! Jenner’s big seduction scene with Perrine must be one of the most inept love scenes ever committed to celluloid. Granted, Ron is supposed to be a klutz, perhaps to show that he has range (an Olympic athlete playing a klutz! My sides — they’ve split!), but Ron isn’t even a funny, endearing klutz like the kind that, say, Chevy Chase used to play at that point in his career. That Prince Valiant haircut didn’t do Jenner any favors, either. In any case, I was longing for someone to smack hot-and-cold-running Ron upside the head! To be fair, Jenner also isn’t helped by the fact that screenwriters Allan Carr and Bronte Woodard apparently thought household accidents and their accompanying injuries were the height of hilarity. Hey, nobody loves knockabout screwball comedy more than I do! But I’m afraid CStM’s slapstick accidents are ineptly staged, and look more painful than funny, e.g. searingly hot lasagna spilled in someone’s lap, hair getting painfully caught on things, etc. On the positive side, it’s the next best thing to having someone smack Ron upside the head! Then there’s Marilyn Sokol as Sam’s man-hungry BFF Lulu Brecht. Our family adored Sokol in Foul Play (1978) and other comedies, but for some reason Walker directed Sokol to act like Lena Hyena and look like Tim Curry in drag, and without even the luxury of a Rocky Horror-style feather boa and teddy! Poor Lulu isn’t even allowed to be smart; at the very least, she needs to brush up on her American History as she ogles Felipe wearing his American Indian garb, purring, “I’ll make up for all the indignities they suffered in Roots!”

Will Tammy Grimes’ purple reign make Marilyn Sokol turn yellow?

Seems like every few minutes, someone in CStM burbles about how the 1980s will be “wonderfully new and different,” and yet everything else about the flick screams “1970s,” from the disco scenes to Samantha’s Lycra slutwear. And why hasn’t Sam gone blind from storing her hard contact lenses in mustard and relish jars in her fridge? That said, CStM does have its strengths: the movie certainly has plenty of verve; cute in-jokes (like “Marrakesh Records,” clearly spoofing the VPs’ Casablanca Records); deliciously gaudy-bordering-on-garish production numbers with eye-popping fashions by the great Theoni V. Aldredge; and when The VPs do get to speak, they’re as affable as they are cute. Most people remember “Y.M.C.A.,” performed in a beefcake-populated gym, but my favorite is “Do the Shake,” which is way more fun than any of the milk-slurping, leotard-wearing, or jeans-clad Yuppies in that era’s tasteful, health-conscious American Dairy Association ads. As Sam’s agent Sydne Channing, Tammy Grimes vows to “make milk more glamorous than champagne…I’m going to insist they cork it!”

Watch for the remake: Dario Argento's Can't Stop the Music!

The club-footed direction of Bounty-hawker Walker evokes Vincente Minnelli possessed by the spirit of Ed Wood after going on a bender. This proves that men and women are truly equal, at least when it comes to film direction: female directors are just as capable of making bad movies as male directors! Still, I don’t know about you guys, but I can’t resist movies shot on location in New York City that show unemployed people living in huge, gorgeous apartments worthy of Architectural Digest, with homeless people and muggers who also happen to be cute, clean, and peppy. It must have been a scorching day when they filmed the scene between Jenner and Perrine across the street from the U.N. (a hop, skip, and jump from the Manhattan apartment building where our family lived at the time!), because you can see the poor woman’s long, lustrous hair drooping from the heat with each step. Another attraction for me is that CStM was filmed in the NYC of my youth; I’m always reminded of the places I went to when I lived in Manhattan, and how different it was in good and bad ways (for instance, I’m one of those kooks who actually applauds the de-sleazing of Times Square!). Love it or hate it, CStM keeps your eyes glued to it with the fascination of a horrific traffic accident — and you can hum along with it, by George!

Eat your heart out, Busby Berkeley!

When you got it, milk it, baby, milk it!

Get your toes tapping and have a disco ball with these links to CStM musical numbers: 

Magic Night: http://youtu.be/X_khn1_16kE

David Hodo, CStM: “I Love You to Death”

http://youtu.be/1dFTZrZkKl4

Do the Shake: http://youtu.be/T6LtSSOCjI4
Y.M.C.A.: http://youtu.be/5QF9OsfrfH

Vinnie's Pick: The Apple (1980)

What was it about the year 1980? Was it the glee of watching the numbers flip? The promise of a brand spanking new decade? We'll never know, but somehow this one year brought us not only the masterpiece The Wife has presented you, but also the musical burr in your boot that is The Apple.

First off , it was created and produced by Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus, masterminds behind Cannon Productions, a film company that may be more representative of the '80s than we may care to admit. It's written by Golan, and can't seem to decide which end of the Bible it wanted to be an allegory, and so it steals liberally from both Genesis and Revelations. The films starts at the Eurovision song contest and ends with The Rapture.
The film takes place in the "distant future" of 1994, a miraculous world where everyone is wearing...basically what they wear in the most embarrassingly popular disco, only more so. Shoulder pads are bigger, fabric is vinylier, and apparently it's now legally required too look like either a whore, a pimp, or just a damn fool. The outfits are a distinct visual shorthand - the bad guys wear the flashy duds, and the good guys dress like people. Cars all resemble late-model station wagons with crazy fins and spoilers welded on. Apparently they only manufacture about six models of automobile now, because no matter how many places you look, that's all you see on the road. It's hilarious to watch the wealthy and powerful baddies of the film pile into the SAME car, over and over.

Boogalow (Vladek Sheybal) faces down Bob Pitman (George S. Clinton)

It stars Catherine Mary Stewart, later of Night of the Comet and The Last Starfighter. She and One-Film Wonder George Gilmour play, respectively, Bibi and Alphie, a singing duo from Moosejaw, Saskatchewan who catch the eye and raise the ire of Mr. Boogalow, the world's most powerful music producer, and, apparently, the Devil. Boogalow (Vladek Sheybal; From Russia With Love's Alexei Kronsteen himself) rigs the (thinly disguised) Eurovision Song Contest when Alphie and Bibi's heartwarming love song almost defeats his heavily produced and marketed number, "BIM" and immediately starts marketing BIM-merchandise, including an adhesive mark that he insists everyone starts wearing. Less than ten minutes in and the apocalypse-allegory is starting!

Boogalow wants to sign the pair; Bibi is all for it, but Alphie smells a rat. Not to mention when they visit Boogalow's office, he starts having visions - he imagines an earthquake rocks the building, and envisions a massive production number in Hell, featuring the titular prop. Alphie runs from the deal like he was prodded with a pitchfork, but Bibi's head is turned, she signs, and is world-famous before he can bottom out in his cheap tenement. At the behest of his landlady (the delightful character actress Miriam Margolyes, playing a Jewish stereotype worthy of Judd Hirsch in Independence Day), he keeps trying to sell songs, but naturally, his work "isn't what they're looking for".

Another example of the stark realism that permeates this film

Bibi's star is on the rise, and so is Boogalow's. The BIM-Mark is now legally mandatory, and Boogalow's power seems almost supernatural in its breadth and speed. Alphie tries to contact Bibi repeatedly, and though she seems keen on talking to him, they are kept apart by a wall of spandex-clad flunkies and bodyguards. Alphie crashes one of Boogalow's traditionally lavish parties to save Bibi, but with the help of Something In His Drink and some crazy camera lenses, he hallucinates Bibi in bed with one of the BIM singers, and he gets shagged rotten by another. He awakes in the park surrounded by hippies, under the benevolence of Joss Ackland, the baddie from Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey. They take him into their commune, and he stays with them while Bibi finally works up the onions to leave Boogalow's control. Her escape is rather underwhelming - the singer who shagged Alphie at the party suddenly comes off all penitent and helps Bibi leave the corporate apartment. Not escape, leave; Boogalow's head flunkie just chooses to let her leave, as if freedom will somehow teach her a lesson, and she'll come back beggin' for more fame and sequined spandex.

Bibi finds Alphie via the sage advice of his Very Jewish Ex-Landlady, and their reunion in the commune is brief and melodic. Suddenly it's a year later; the pair have had a baby and everything, and Boogalow have only JUST tracked them down, never mind that their secret hiding place is a public park walking distance from his offices. They arrive with a small militia and battery of attorneys, claiming that Bibi owes Boogalow International Music the sum of ten million dollars - it's not made clear if that represents lost wages or the security deposit on her corporate apartment.

The BIM-army lead the hippies away, and it's only at THIS point that the film gets weird. While Bibi wonders what will happen to them, Alphie begins talking about a mysterious "Mister Topps" who he is sure will arrive. And arrive he does, via a golden Lincoln Continental in the sky. Mister Topps is, apparently, God, and is ALSO played by Joss Ackland, with no explanation whatsoever. He and Boogalow know each other, and in spite of the the producer's protests, he guides Alphie, Bibi, their child, and the rest of the commune away, and off into the sky. He plans to take them to another world, one "free of the pollution" of Boogalow.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Chuck DeNomolos saves the world by Rapturing the hippies. Never before has there been a filmic world I so seriously want to live in.

Judging from the trailer, a great deal more time was apparently intended to be spent with the hippies, but was left on the proverbial cutting room floor. So for all we know there's some vital expository dialogue sitting in a can (film, or trash...if indeed there's a difference) somewhere that explains the mysterious connection between the Two Josses, a line that would reduce the mad left turn the film takes. But we don't see it, and so a film that was only blatantly allegorical becomes outrageously so in the final minutes.

It's the first film score of George S. Clinton...no, not the man behind Funkadelic, but the composer and music producer of things like Red Shoe Diaries and Sharpay's Fabulous Adventure. His music is technically impressive, but it's all utterly soulless. He goes for obvious rhymes and scansion, as if he read the best books available about how to write music, and followed the rules to the letter. He hits a bunch of genres: power ballad, wall of sound, disco and even rudimentary heavy metal. They're all perfectly good songs, and the cast perform them very well - Catherine Mary Stewart's got some serious pipes. But it's all like so much dietary fiber, it goes right through you. One song, "I'm Coming", is the single most blatantly sexual disco songs I've ever heard, and if it had even a NOTE or satire or irony in it, could be the single best parody of a disco song ever. But there isn't - it's played utterly straight. He also has no idea how to stop a song. Too many of them end with incessant repetition of the tune's hook, well past its welcome has run out.

“They Call me Mister Topps” – Not a funny caption – ACTUAL line from movie

The dancing, however, is absolutely stellar. It's some of the last choreographic work of Nigel Lythgoe, who's gone on to much greater fame as among other things, judge and executive producer of So You Think You Can Dance. The dance moves are precise and imaginative. The dancers actually can dance, and Nigel comes up with some modern moves that still hold up. Like so many films that take place in The Future, the movie seems to have been filmed in a series of modern hotels and shopping malls, but it feels like it was conceived and written in a really crowded disco. It's loud and pounding and there's an underlying scent of sweat and desperation in the air. And somehow, I can't stop watching it.